Thirteener

In mountaineering in the United States, a thirteener is a mountain that exceeds 13,000 feet (3,962.4 m) above mean sea level, similar to the more familiar "fourteeners," which exceed 14,000 feet (4,267.2 m). In most instances, "thirteeners" refers only to those peaks between 13,000 and 13,999 feet in elevation.

The importance of thirteeners is greatest in Colorado, which has the majority of such peaks in North America with over 600 of them. Despite the daunting number of peaks, a few dedicated peak baggers have successfully managed to climb all of Colorado's thirteeners.[citation needed] Thirteeners are also significant in states whose highpoints fall between 13,000 and 13,999 feet. Regarding whether or not peaks in excess of 13,999 feet should be considered as "thirteeners", this article will count them as such for statistical purposes, but concentrate its focus on those peaks less than 14,000 feet since the higher peaks are already covered in the fourteeners list.

Not all summits over 13,000 feet qualify as thirteeners, but only those summits that mountaineers consider to be independent. Objective standards for independence include topographic prominence and isolation (distance from a higher summit), or a combination. However thirteener lists do not always consistently use such objective rules. A rule commonly used by mountaineers in the contiguous United States is that a peak must have at least 300 feet (91 m) of prominence to qualify. According to the Mountaineering Club of Alaska, it is standard in Alaska to use a 500 ft (152 m) prominence rule rather than a 300 foot rule. These are the standards applied for the lists below.

By the most detailed count, Colorado has 637 peaks that exceed 13,000 feet (4,000 m) and meet the prominence criteria, of which 53 are fourteeners.[1][2] The highest of them less than 14,000 feet are as follows (the rank includes higher peaks):

California has the second greatest number of thirteeners with 147 of them, of which 11 are fourteeners (these counts exclude Mount Muir, which may not have 300 ft prominence).[3] The highest under 14,000 feet are as follows (the rank includes higher peaks):

Alaska has at least 41 thirteeners that meet its more stringent prominence criteria of 500 ft, of which 20 are also fourteeners. Different sources list varying numbers of 13,000+ ft peaks in the state,[4][5][6] mainly because many of the peaks (especially those that are sub-peaks of a higher mountain) are unnamed and have no spot elevations given on the USGS topographical maps. The following list may miss a few peaks that should be included:

Utah has 17 thirteeners with at least 300 ft of prominence, but no fourteeners.[8][9] All of them are located in the remote Uinta Mountains near the Wyoming border, with none in the more famous Wasatch Range. Only nine of these thirteeners even have official names, the others (including those ranked 5–9) are merely unnamed sub-peaks with sufficient prominence to qualify. The highest of the thirteeners are:

Mount Rainier is the only mountain in Washington state that exceeds 13,000 feet (4,000 m), and it has two summits that meet the prominence criteria,[13] both of which are included on the list of fourteeners.